The Top 10 Board 8 Users of 2007
''by. Vlado: It is the end of the year, typically a time for analysis. As the resident Board 8 journalist, I'll once again point the attention of the board at its finest users of the year, like I did in 2006. There are many cool users on this board, but only a select few truly contribute a lot to making the place entertaining. Here I will reveal the 10 of them that were "crème de la crème" this year. First, for some reminiscence... In 2006, the following users demonstrated excellence worthy of making it into the top 15: 1. Edouble 2. Smurf 3. Inviso 4. The Raven 2 5. Zachnorn 6. sephsblade 7. Holy Excalibur 8. DSRage 9. ZenOfThunder 10. CycloReaper 11. ExThaNemesis 12. PhantomLink 13. Sir Chris 14. FigureOfSpeech 15. maplejet Edouble was above all others last year, his cunning wit and intelligence being an incredible asset to the board in 2006. I remember that my initial intention was to have a top 10 like this time around, but it was so difficult to pick just 10 that I decided to extend it to a top 15. This year, things are different, though. Let's not kid ourselves, it's been a relatively boring year on the board. Things seem to be getting less and less entertaining as time goes by, many excellent users leave or post much less than they used to. You'll notice that many of the 15 on last year's list have either dropped down or completely dropped off the list. New stars have risen, though. So then, let's kick off. Throughout the topic, feel free to comment on the list and make your own suggestions and predictions. 10. Dr Pizza Board 8's resident YouTube celebrity (although admittedly not a very big one), The Doctor kicks off this year's list. In the beginning of the year, Dr Pizza was mostly known for the Board 8 Baseball League. It was an indeed excellent idea, and the implementation was quite stellar, as well, although it did spawn some controversy due to people being pissed they weren't getting much play time in the fictional team, the "Aurora 8's". But I'd say that's even a positive thing, as far as the project itself is concerned - if people would care so much as to argue about that, then Pizza had really done something good and interesting. Another great aspect of this was that The Doctor did the commentary on the matches, and man, was it entertaining! Pizza also did guest commentary for the Board 8 Football/Soccer League, a spin-off of his league, which didn't last very long but was also great fun. I participated in both, and I must say they were among the few really excellent projects the board saw in 2007. Later in the year, after the baseball league project ended, Dr Pizza got famous for his rants on various subjects on YouTube. They were just as entertaining as his sports commentary, and they once again put him in the spotlight of our board. Using his camera, Pizza has spoken on various controversial subjects, garnering much attention. He also made some awesome wrestling-related videos, like the Slideshow tribute to wrestlers who died too young: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEXubAQC8og But his finest work has to be the rant on women he did in September. It has over 2000 views on YouTube, and the topic about it on our board was also quite interesting. Pizza is a young guy who, for one reason or another, doesn't have much luck with women, and he had apparently suffered quite a bit of frustration which erupted in an excellent video where he said a lot of truths about the opposite sex. You can see the rant for yourselves here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuqXuRQxgq0 Pizza definitely did a lot to make our board more fun in 2007, and he deservedly kicks off the list of the finest users of the year. Interestingly, last year's list was kicked off by Maplejet - another Board 8'er who had become an important part of another site's community, in his case YTMND. I wonder where Mapes went... But anyway, this year The Doctor is in 10th, I really hope he continues to entertain and contribute to making our community better in 2008. 9. Holy Excalibur Excellent as ever, Holy Excalibur makes the list for a second year in a row. He's an incredibly valuable user that far too few people here appreciate. Not one to whore himself out for popularity or post tens of topics a day just to get attention, HE would rather just have fun and do what he likes here - which is exactly the way a user here should be. Of course, if anyone recognises him, it's for one of two reasons - either his absolutely brilliant Top 100 lists, which I consider the best reoccurring project on the board, period, or the Board 8 Ladder - an extremely interesting idea that saw plenty of users tackle various games and post their scores in order to get ranked. I never participated in the latter due to lack of free time, but it was certainly quite fascinating even to just follow from the outside. Holy Excalibur is very big into RPGs, especially obscure ones, and more specifically tri-Ace's stuff, which is a company not enough RPG fans appreciate. If you ever need help in a tri-Ace game, HE is the guy to turn to, you certainly wouldn't get disappointed. HE has even tried to create a Board 8 RPG, and boy, did he have some awesome and original ideas for it. Much like with 99% of the attempted board RPGs, though, his is taking a long while to be completed. But should he go through and finish it one day, it is bound to provide enormous entertainment for everyone on the board who'd play it. One way or another, though, HE's best work on the board are the Top 100 lists. He usually does three of these every 6 months (though it seems he's switching to annual lists now), two always being character and game lists, the third one alternating, but the last two times it's been game series. The voting usually takes place in several ones, the first one being people simply ranking their top 20 and then special rounds like Top 10 by Gender for characters and Top 5 by Genre for games. He recently did characters and series, Solid Snake taking a second win in a row in the former to equal Magus' record of two wins (Cloud has one, there have been 5 editions of the Board 8 Top 100 Game Characters so far): http://www.freewebs.com/eightboard/ and the series one being revealed right now, with the Top 10 yet to come: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=8&topic=40443943 http://www.freewebs.com/board8series I'm sure the Game list, which I personally enjoy the most, will come in the beginning of 2008, as the last edition was from February 2007: http://www.freewebs.com/board8 That one's heavily dominated by GameFAQs' two-time Best. Game. Ever., Final Fantasy VII, which has won all 4 editions so far. Either way, what makes these lists so special is that there is no anti-voting, which prevents awesome games and characters from losing because of spiteful Nintendo voters. The lists reflect the true state of Board 8 preferences on the subjects in question and are far more credible than bracket contests. Holy Excalibur deserves so much credit for these, I doubt many realise what hard work it is to tally so many votes and to do write-ups on 100 games/characters/series in a couple of days. So kudos to Holy Excalibur for being so awesome, the year 2007 on this board would've definitely been much less interesting without him! 8. linkhatesganon A year ago, Link was just a newbie who barely anyone knew or noticed, but in 2007 he made quite a mark on the board and made a lot of friends and a few enemies. I have to say he was definitely one of the people to impress the most throughout the year, so his spot here on this list is well-deserved. He definitely showed that he cared quite a bit about this place, and did a lot to make it more fun. A lot would probably say he even cares a bit too much, but the way he acts deserves nothing but praise. He is usually friendly, but he will not let his few haters walk all over him. The first thing one would remember about him is the awesome contests he made, like the Gamecube game one or my personal favourite, the Save my Final Fantasy girl one. Link, along with me, is one of the most frequent posters among the many Tifa fans on the board, and we often end up saving her in contests like his or Raytan's. Unfortunately, that's rarely enough to help her get a top position, due to the anti-votes she gets, mostly because of me. But that's another story. Link's contests were where I, and I guess most board 8 users, first noticed him. It has to be noted that, as his username suggests, he is a huge fan of Nintendo. But, unlike a great part of them, he wouldn't hate on his favourite company's competitors, or at least wouldn't show it on the board. We've had much more than our fair share of anti-Sony spite and hatred, and it's quite refreshing to see a huge N-head not go on the offensive against the console market dominator of the last decade. That's the kind of fan everyone enjoys seeing - one that would support his own company (of course, without going to extremes) rather than bash the competition. A Nintendo fan and also a high quality user? Not very common on this board, but Link is one! Lastly, it has to be mentioned that a handful of people here, for whatever reason, really dislike Link. They often bash him about his less-than-perfect English skills, but I'd say his English is good for a second language. I really like the way he responds to such flames, namely making fun of those guys about their Spanish skills. Quite witty and effective. Link is also a Barca fan, which only earns him further respect. Too bad he's probably too young to remember the times when Cruyff and Stoichkov lead his team to 4 consecutive titles. While there is still a lot to be desired in perspective (I think he would greatly benefit from learning to take the board a bit less seriously and realising that internet popularity is a joke and not something worth striving for), Link had an amazing year here. He contributed a lot to our little society and was treated accordingly by most in return. I hope he has an even better year 2008 on the board. Just remember, this message board is about having fun, not about being popular. The latter should never get in the way of the former. 7. Warning_Crazy Warning_Crazy went from a relatively unknown user to one of the most recognisable people on the board in 2007. And there are two major reasons for this - Board 8 Two and the Pikaness drama. While WC really doesn't do all that much else, these two were really big for our community in 2007, and they earn him a well-deserved spot on the top 10 list. A young, inexperienced and troubled individual, not unlike many other users among both the popular and the not-so-well-known ones, Warning_Crazy created something that many had tried to do before, but never actually had much success with. Board 8 Two. A community within the community, a safe haven for many of those unknown people who thought this board was too big for them to be able to make a serious impression on (of course, this is a pretty false assumption, anyone could make an impression here if they actually tried), and who were tired of being overshadowed by the "popular" Board 8 users. I don't think I ever posted on Board 8 Two, but the idea and implementation really have to be commended. It was Warning_Crazy's hard work that accomplished something quite notable, of course, with the help of the others who posted there. Many friendships flourished there, some feuds were born, which eventually lead to its downfall, but more on that later. Secondly and more importantly, the Pikaness (or, as Sess wittily called it, HE-kaness) drama. As most of us already know, it was the biggest event on the board in 2007 after L-Block's victory. We hadn't seen such massive, entertaining drama in quite a while. It was the topic where the user Pikaness, who had claimed to be female, was revealed to actually be male, a liar, and a horrible person at the same time. As you well know, this is a pretty sensitive subject to me, due to my past experiences with a user in the exact same situation. So I followed it closely and even wrote an article on it, where you can see my thoughts in a more detailed manner: http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/My_view_on_the_Pikaness_drama Indeed, it was Smurf who made the research, and the fact that Pikaness was not really female was already well-known among the members of BE2. But it was Warning_Crazy brought it to the public on our board, he incited the drama and provided the entertainment for the vast majority of us, so he rightfully gets most of the credit for it. Maybe he did it in an attempt to increase BE2's popularity, which failed miserably, due to GMUN (who got really pissed at WC for revealing him to have actually e-dated a guy) giving Admin status to Cyclo, who deleted the board, practically destroying it (soon after, Board 8 Two spawned GMUN's Board 8 Three, a desperate attempt to revive the BE2 community. Whether it'll be successful is yet to be determined). But WC's motive doesn't really matter, it's the good work and entertainment he provided that does. Hence him rightfully claiming the seventh spot on this list. 6. hochiminh155 http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/contest/cb6 See that handsome guy who got the 5th place ($100) prize? That's Hochi. Indeed, he's just a one-hit wonder from the last contest. Someone's alt (rumours say it was the so-called "Numbers Guy"'s), and a user who I'd rather never return to the board. But not because he was awful, quite the opposite. He was so awesome, and the contest results went so well in his favour, that I hope he never appears again so that he doesn't ruin the impression. Indeed, aside from owning throughout the contest, Hochi didn't do a single other notable thing in 2007. But what he did was more than enough to earn a spot here. Virtually a nobody on the board, he started the contest fairly well, and one nice day made a topic entitled "Hochiminh's path to victory" or something like that. We had seen something similar before, from the user Fedor during the boring villains contest. Almost until the end, things looked like they'd end similarly, too... But, unlike Fedor, it was Hochi who had the last laugh in this case. The board doesn't like arrogant people, and almost everyone bashed Hochi and made fun of him for being so confident he'd win, especially after finding out that he didn't have Link winning the contest. Everybody and his cat had Link, the contest had been mind-numbingly boring and predictable in the last few years, and people simply thought nothing would change. The L-Block phenomenon, however, ruined those predictions. Hochi actually went quite well for a while, and he capitalised on that to argue with some board users like Swirldude and Swift from the height of a top leaderboard position, and try to convince us all that it was possible for Link to lose the final. Nobody believed him, I personally was one of the 2-3 that sided with the notion that his thoughts made sense and he just might have pulled his seemingly crazy prediction off. Then, in the 2nd round, Hochi started losing more points and fell off the leaderboard. People thought his bracket was dead and buried right there and then, and proceeded to laugh at and make fun of him. He never gave up, though. He kept being confident in his success, knowing that those small points weren't that big of a harm, especially since pretty much everyone was losing a lot of points due to the new format making the contest much harder to predict. And, at the end, he was right. In the later rounds, he managed to come back on the leaderboard. People still thought he was doomed, as Link was still surely going to win at the end, but they failed to predict one thing - L-Block. The Tetris representative crushed all competition and, at the end, it was Hochi who had Link in the exact spot where he finished - second. That earned him a great deal of points - 64, while pretty much everyone else on the board just got 32. That more than made up for Hochi's previous failures, and he finished in a spot that guaranteed him a prize. At the end, Hochi's arrogance had paid off. The only board regular who had finished ahead of him was Explicit Content. Circumstantially or not, he had essentially owned the board. The same people who had made fun of him throughout the two months of the contest had to admit it at the end - he had beaten them. He won $100 more than they did. Unlike Fedor, his plan had succeeded. He had the last laugh, he could point his finger at everyone else instead of vice versa, like it usually happens. For once, the stat-heads had to hang their heads in shame and swallow their pride. Many cried that Hochi had only gotten lucky that L-Block unexpectedly crushed everyone, but they couldn't change the bitter truth. Hochi knew that the Nintendrones' favourite avatar wasn't invincible, he had predicted that Link would lose, the rest of the board had not. I doubt many would forget Hochi's stunning run on the board during the Sixth annual character battle (easily the biggest event concerning our board in 2007). Hence he's deservedly taking the sixth spot on this list - excellence like his is extremely rare here. 5. Swift One of the most natural, lively and honest users on the board, Swift isn't one to run projects or obsess over e-popularity, but I'd say he made quite an impression on the board in 2007. He has been posting here for a very long time, but it wasn't until 2006 that he became one of the most recognisable users. And it didn't take anything special - he simply started posting more. Swift undoubtedly has the wit and intelligence necessary to be noticed here, and a bit more activity was all he needed. We became buddies in the process, and, although we don't talk much lately due to me having very little free time and not signing on AIM much, I still consider him a good friend. I remember the World Cup 2006, when we celebrated Italia's victory. Those were wonderful times, and I hope that we are able to repeat that in two years. Anyway... 2007. Swift's brilliance flourished completely last year, when he became pretty much a front-runner of the people who know what they are here for - to get entertainment. There are two more users notably displaying this quality that I should mention, and those are the awesome TheCruelAngel and ExThaNemesis. But it is Swift that is getting the credit, due to his behaviour consistently showing that he's far above petty stuff that often happens and is taken seriously on the board. You won't see him being fake just so he can "fit in" better. "Fitting in" is none of his concern. If he doesn't like something you say or do, he'll tell you, even if you're some "popular" user. Mess up, and Swift won't cut you any slack. Truth be told, e-popularity hasn't always been completely irrelevant for Swift. As an Italian, he's the competitive type, and that's why he did what was necessary to kick major ass in the User of the Year 2007. It must be noted, though, that he only put effort into that for the sake of the competition, not because he felt some ridiculous desire, much less need, for random people on the internet to like him. He only took fifth place, unfortunately, with 4 much less deserving users finishing ahead of him, but no-one actually expected him to even be in the top 20 before the contest began. Swift was quite glad with the result, he had beaten many of the "popular" people, and had essentially accomplished his goal. Without being an attention whore, he had beaten tens of people who would fit that description, although, admittedly, not all of them. Swift does care about board drama alright. It gives him many laughs, so he'll never miss it. Swift is the user I'd call an embodiment of the "Internet - serious business" phrase (used in a sarcastic way, of course). Remember in the very beginning of the year, when Smurf apparently had private information about him revealed (though I think Smurf simply staged that through an alt of his in order to whore attention)? Of course, not many would remember that unless they're reminded, since, on Board 8, any "big" event lasts no more than 3 days and is then swiftly forgotten. But anyway, Swift was there, and man, did he have his laughs. He really enjoyed the fact that Smurf appeared to be taking this so seriously, and didn't miss the chance to mock him. Then, there was that topic he and ExTha made about how they'd print out Harry Potter spoilers on shirts and run in front of a crowd waiting in line for the book's launch. Man, was that EPIC! Tens of bitter fanboys insulted them and wished they'd get beat up by the people waiting in line. Swift and ExTha simply laff'd them off and got even more kicks reading their angry reactions. I don't know if they actually put their plan into action (anyone care to enlighten me?), but I enjoyed reading through their topic a whole lot, and I know I wasn't the only one. And thus, Swift takes the fifth spot... Some might say it's not deserved, they might claim he hasn't done anything significant for our community. Indeed, what he does here, Swift mostly does for himself, for his own entertainment. But he's sending a clear, important message, a message that everyone here should hear, understand, and accept for themselves - a message board is about having fun! And that itself is worth FAR more than running contests or writing lists. 4. Ertyu One of the people who have been here for the longest time, Ertyu is certainly one of, if not the most unique user here on this board. I seriously doubt there is a user that is better known than him, and, while most others have their periods of glory and then fade into obscurity, Ertyu is incredibly consistent. And that isn't too surprising, given his nature and the impact his actions have on the whole board. Ertyu is an incredibly straightforward user, and that's surely one of the things that makes him so awesome. He is known for a few things that he's been doing consistently through the years. His love for Dante and hatred for Kirby are irreversibly embedded into the board's folklore, users come and go, but that doesn't change. Even poems have been written about it, and many users don't miss the chance to tease Ertyu about it whenever they can. I myself don't even know why he hates Kirby so much, although his love for the badass Dante is pretty much self-explicable. He loves DMC and DMC3, but considers the second a failure, much like most gamers do. He is also on his way to beating 1000 games. Slowly, but surely, he's getting there, and it won't be that long until we're able to celebrate that historical moment. I personally can't wait. In 2007, he kept fighting the good fight, getting closer and closer, mostly by beating PS2 and Xbox 360 games. On Christmas, he also got a Wii, which means he'll be able to achieve his goal even more quickly now. I really wonder what he'll do once he reaches 1000, though. I sure hope he doesn't quit gaming, as he'd lose a lot if he did that. Ertyu is also known for his board projects, which include drawing pictures and running contests. The former is quite unique, it's a big hobby of his and we're lucky he shares his artistic talents with us. He's the creator of the famous cartoon series Tornadolayzers, where he himself is the prototype of the main character, Tornadoman. You can see pics from the series here: http://www.freewebs.com/ertyu_78/ And here is the site dedicated to the series' villains, the Evildoers! http://www.freewebs.com/resident78/ We saw a couple of Tornadolayzers episodes in 2007, but, especially during the contest, he mostly focused on drawing character battle pics. He's drawn alternative pictures for ALL the character contest matches in history, and has challenged CJayC and SBAllen multiple times in an artistic battle. Unsurprisingly, neither of them ever had the guts to accept the challenge and go one-on-one against Ertyu. Here you can find his character battle pics: http://www.freewebs.com/parasites02/ Ertyu really loves running contests. He usually runs game or cartoon character ones, occasionally trying female ones. It is not difficult to notice that he likes video game girls quite a bit. Aya Brea is one of his favourite characters, and he's very fond of Carmen Sandiego, KOS-MOS, Tifa, Mai Shiranui, and others. But I digress. 2007 has been an awesome year for Ertyu's contests, he started getting a lot of votes again and has been doing one awesome contest after another, sometimes even have two going on at the same time. Currently, he's running the cartoon character battle, in which you can vote by visiting the previous link, and he's accepting nominations for what will certainly turn out to be an awesome game contest: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=8&topic=40695673 So go ahead, vote, nominate, I'm sure Ertyu will really appreciate it. I personally never miss the chance to vote in his contests, which I find to be among the most interesting on the board. 2007 was an awesome year for Ertyu. After a brief period of relative struggling, he has once again become a major figure on Board 8, someone who everyone knows, and pays attention to. Most people don't respect him nearly as much as they should... It's a guy who's really devoted to his work, and doing a lot to entertain us with his pictures and contests, as well as the occasional hilarious random topic. It's no surprise that when I thought about picking the 10 people that were the finest on the board last year, Ertyu was among the first names to come to mind. 3. Zachnorn The second entry who was also on the 2006 list, I'd say Zachnorn had an even better year in 2007. He didn't do all that many new things, per se, but he sure perfected the stuff he had introduced in the previous two years since he came here. We used to associate him with the word "overrated" (due to his rants), but now there are two more things one immediately thinks of when he is mentioned - his Stickcam game playthroughs and the brilliant Board 8 Wiki. In 2007, his overrated rants pattern changed a bit. Now, the people would suggest topics for a rant, and he'd do the rant eventually. Apparently, people were quite interested in that idea, since there's quite a queue of rants waiting to be done now. Zach doesn't have the time to do one every day like he used to in the past, but that's understandable, since he spends a lot of time on his other projects, as well. There are still kind of formulaic, so much as they'll always start with "Seriously." and end with "Therefore, in my opinion Y>X (X being the topic). Discuss.", but what's in between can vary greatly. Here are a couple of nice example of his overrated rants: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/detail.php?board=8&topic=34545987&message=402228205 http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/detail.php?board=8&topic=34545987&message=402228247 http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/detail.php?board=8&topic=39283892&message=431588448 Onto the Stickam playthroughs... I think that this is the project that has gained Zach the most followers. The concept is very simple - he chooses a game and broadcasts playing through it live on Stickam, where others can watch and comment (there's a live chat). Understandably, a lot of people find that quite entertaining. I also do, although I haven't had the chance to watch him very often due to usually being asleep while he's broadcasting. I guess this is where Zach's trademark symbol of sorts, the ice cream cone (